Page 16 of Captain's Orders
"No." Jordan stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Her eyes dropped to Dani's chest. The tank top was thin and theair conditioning wasn't helping. She looked away fast but not fast enough. "It's fine. You're right. We should at least try to be normal around each other."
"Yeah. Why is that so hard?" Dani put the hairdryer away, pulled on a pair of shorts and sat cross-legged on the pull-out bed. "Any ideas on how to make this less awkward?"
"I don't know," Jordan said. A beat. Then she cleared her throat. "I think I need a nightcap. Want one?"
Dani nodded, and Jordan poured them both a tumbler. She handed her one and sat down on her berth.
"I swear I don't usually drink much."
"I know. I find a used tumbler in here maybe once a week. If that." Dani took a sip and winced. "Sorry if sharing a cabin with me has driven you to hard liquor."
"It's not you, it's me," Jordan said dryly.
Dani snorted. "God, I've heard that one before."
Jordan laughed too. "Have you?"
"More times than I can count," Dani said. "Dating's not easy when you live on a boat for long stretches at a time and spend your days off recovering from the last charter. Nobody wants to compete with a yacht for your attention." She shrugged. "But I love my job. Wouldn't trade it."
"So you don't date much?" Jordan asked.
"I go on dates, the dating app kind. But I go into them knowing it's probably not going anywhere. For now, the job comes first. I haven't figured out how to do both." Dani regarded her. "What about you?" She frowned. "It's mad, isn't it—four years of working together and I barely know anything about you. I'm assuming you're single?"
"Very single," Jordan said. "Have been for a long time."
"By choice?"
The question was direct, and Jordan appreciated that about Dani. She didn't tiptoe, but it landed somewhere tender.
"I suppose it's habit." Jordan took a sip. "I had someone, years ago. After that I stopped looking."
Dani waited, giving her space to say more. She didn't.
"I'm sorry," Dani said. "I didn't mean to pry."
"It's fine. I hook up with women I meet in bars from time to time, but it's never more than that." Jordan heard herself and winced. That was more than she'd intended to give away. It was too late to back out now though, because Dani's gaze had drifted to the shelf above the desk, where the two framed photographs sat propped against the bulkhead.
"Go on," Jordan said. "I know you're dying to ask."
Dani hesitated. "I've dusted those frames so many times. I've always wondered who they were, but it never felt like my place."
Maybe it was the scotch. Or maybe Jordan was just tired of keeping everything behind the wall she'd built. If she and Dani were going to survive this charter without driving each other—and themselves—mad, they needed to find some kind of footing that wasn't just awkwardness and avoidance.
"The one on the left is me and my dad," Jordan said. "Taken before he died of cancer, five years ago. He was a captain too—merchant navy. Spent thirty years on cruise ships, the big transatlantic liners. When he retired, he bought a forty-foot sailboat and ran small charters out of Key West." She smiled at the memory. "He used to say that big ships paid the bills but small boats fed the soul."
"I'm sorry," Dani said. "He must have been proud of you."
"He was. He'd been in the Navy himself when he was younger—we were cut from the same cloth. Couldn't stay away from the water. He left me enough to buy theMaiden Voyage. That's how my charter business started."
"And your mom?" Dani asked.
"My mother's the opposite. Doesn't even like swimming. She spent my entire Navy career convinced every phone call wasgoing to be bad news. She worries less now, but if there's a storm warning anywhere in the Caribbean, my phone lights up. She still lives in the same house I grew up in. She's actually started seeing someone recently—a retired dentist she met at her book club. She's being very coy about it, which means it's serious."
Dani smiled. "That's sweet." Her eyes drifted back to the second frame and Jordan braced herself. Now that she'd started, she might as well get it over with.
"And that's Sam."
Her name felt foreign in Jordan's mouth. It had been years since she'd said it out loud. She talked to the picture all the time but she never said the name.
